State, Power, Socialism

Introduction

“State, Power, Socialism”, Poulantzas’s last book, appeared in 1978 and revises his earlier structuralism. The state is neither a thing that a class possesses nor a subject with a will of its own, but the material condensation of a relation of forces between classes and class fractions; social struggles run through the state itself. Against Michel Foucault, Poulantzas grants that power works through techniques and knowledge, but insists that it is rooted in the relations of production and the social division of labour and has its centre in the state. He describes an “authoritarian statism” in Western democracies and argues for a democratic road to socialism that transforms the state from within while extending direct democracy and self-management. Stuart Hall discussed the book in the “New Left Review” in 1980.

Connections

Criticizes

• Discipline and Punish1975 · Michel Foucault

More works by Nicos Poulantzas

• 1968Political Power and Social Classes